


Existence

by FoggedReality



Category: No Man's Sky (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I need to get this out before it consumes me, Interloper - Freeform, No Plot, No tags worth searching, Nothing new here, Story started with one phrase and got all angsty, Traveler - Freeform, musings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27679349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoggedReality/pseuds/FoggedReality
Summary: The entity labeled by everyone else as "Traveler" considers what it means to be.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Existence

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the first time, and this is actually the story I had initially planned. But because it was based on No Man's Sky so heavily, and it was only a short-story's worth of an idea, it wasn't what I ended up with as I started writing. This story has demanded it be written anyway. It's not new, it's probably nothing original, but it needed to get out of my head and out of my way. 
> 
> Regardless of the reasons, I hope you enjoy.

I don’t know how I got here.

I don’t understand the place I’m in, and I don’t understand the languages of the creatures around me.

I woke up… and was here, so I’m not even sure what ‘before’ actually was.

I knew enough to rewire my ship back together, but I don’t know what caused it to be so damaged. Did we encounter a black hole? A wormhole? An anomaly?

I know enough to survive. A scientific, questing mind inhabits my body, but is it enough to ask questions and not know the reasons behind it? To see and discover worlds and creatures and species that have already been here long enough to create their own civilizations.

How am I here?

WHY am I here?

And do I really even need to understand?

It would be nice.

It would be a relief to hear my own language and not something half garbled and mistranslated through a tinny speaker in my helm. It would be nice to have others that share my wants and desires… to share a story or an experience that has nothing to do with trying to learn some impossible-for-my-tongue-to-pronounce alien word or with trading enough goods to buy needed supplies.

Some of the little aliens in the nearest trading post have started calling me ‘the Traveler.’ I tried once to tell them my name, but they don’t seem to care that I have one. I am a curiosity to them, and I feel like the only reason they deal with me at all is to see what strange thing I’ll do or ask for next.

No matter how long I’ve been here, I never feel at home, even though this is the most comfortable and beautiful place I have been in my travels. The grass is blue, and the twin suns that this planet orbits make colors in the sunset that no living thing will ever know how to describe.

Or perhaps it’s only me that can’t put it to words.

I lack a poet’s tongue, or I would sing the beauties of the world and the galaxy around me. I could appreciate more of the infinity of the universe, and no matter where I traveled, I would always have a place I could call a home.

But it’s not really _home_ , because it’s not where I came from. I can’t even imagine what it must be like. Or must have _been_ like. Were there tall spires and cities of metal and glass and concrete reaching into the sky, or was it as desolate as the places I visit now? Does it even still exist or was it wiped out by a natural disaster or humanity’s collective hubris? Did I flee from some galaxy-altering destruction that sent me spiraling out into space with no sense of direction and no memory of how I got here? Or have I been asleep for a thousand years, and this is all that is left of what once was?

I exist. But I’ll never know.

It’s not a comforting thought… that even if by chance I found where I’m from, it might not still be there.

My ship was so damaged that any records I would have had from my travels was erased from the system’s memory. Nothing was left, no shred or scrap of data that I could rebuild from. With nowhere to start, finding where I came from would be like finding one specific grain of sand on a desert planet…it will simply never happen, and I have to resign myself to that. To do otherwise is to cease to exist at all.

I have to believe I can do something meaningful here besides existing by myself, but there are none of these species that I can actually call a friend. That they are friendly is not the same thing at all. I have no one to share my thoughts with, and when I despair, there is no one to hear my pleas.

I exist. But I miss knowing what love is.

I know it exists. I’ve seen other species being tender with each other, even if not in the ways I feel would be familiar to me. I don’t think some of them have male or female at all, but that doesn’t change emotion. Love is love. Period.

I care. I think I do. Perhaps it’s only empathy, and that’s something at least. I have no desire to do harm to anyone or anything. I certainly can’t blame them for my plight, so anger would do nothing constructive. I was angry at first, but what was I supposed to do with it. With nothing to direct it against, no action I could take to resolve my situation, it only ate at me from within. I had to let it go lest it consume me, and in a place where I was completely alone, I wouldn’t survive with hate for the universe in my heart.

So I wept for whatever it was I lost. I wept for so long and for a time, that felt like all there was. But I wouldn’t be able to live that way…and there had to be a reason I lived. So I made myself go on.

I exist. But I’ve forgotten what it is to be happy.

I don’t think I even remember the last time I was truly happy, excited, thrilled with anything. If something struck me as funny now, would I remember how to laugh?

Have I been amused by anything that has happened since I woke up on that awful planet, clicks away from my crashed ship? I’ve been amazed, but there has been no thrill of excitement, no smile that has graced my lips. Has there ever been?

It’s hard to even accept the others’ reactions as laughter, so foreign are the sounds that they could just as well be grimacing, baring their teeth as a threat, or growling a warning as making sounds of a laugh. I wouldn’t know one from the other…so even if something stuck me as amusing, do I even dare to chuckle lest it be taken the same way by them? As aggressive as some of them act towards other beings, I could very well find myself full of projectiles as find them grinning with me.

I exist. But I don’t dream.

I can create… to a degree. I’m not artistic, but I should be proud that I built this place with my own hands. That I found at least one place in the universe where I can take off my helmet and breathe without filters, hear the wind and listen to the call of the native creatures without it being digitally reproduced through a speaker in my ear. The water in the lakes here are clean and clear, and though I still filter it just to make sure, it doesn’t taste as foreign as everything else.

I gave up on the synthetic food processor that I managed to scrape together enough valuable scrap to buy. It made everything bland or left a chemical aftertaste. I broke it apart for the components and built a fire pit instead. It takes longer to prepare, but at least the act of eating is no longer a chore.

I wonder if the other species think I’m some sort of hobo. If I lived here without any sort of tech, limping into a settlement with a bag of junk to beg for scraps, perhaps. I still feel like that’s the lifestyle I’m living…scraping and collecting and scavenging for just one more day. I don’t feel that I’m lacking for anything material. I have a roof and floor and solid walls to protect against the storms and occasional predator. I have a ship so I can travel…not just to the local settlement, but to the stars.

That should be a glorious thing, but I don’t have anything to actually aspire to. I could build my house until it was a thing of awe, but why? I don’t need it. I have no one to impress or anyone to invite to see it. There are no parties or gatherings that will ever happen here. I don’t need to decorate my walls with trophies or fancy décor, because it has no meaning to anyone…not even to me.

I exist. But that feels like all I do.

I sometimes go to the space station orbiting above the ringed planet just to be around other living, civilized beings. I’ll trade with them if they indicate that’s what they want. I’ll learn a word or two of their language to make it easier to communicate above rudimentary gestures. I’ve found that some things are universal…but the more I learn, the more I wonder why I bother.

Except that it’s something to do. The thought of having to learn dozens of different languages does not excite me as much as it seems to thrill them that I am willing to try to learn. Or perhaps they figuratively pat me on the head and give me a treat as they would with a pet or a child who succeeded in some new task. I’ve performed some adorable trick for their entertainment.

I feel like that should be demeaning, but it’s just one more tool to survive, and if that is the worst thing I have to do in the process, it's not so bad.

Survival has become the driving force. I feel like it’s what I have to do. I am the alien in this place. I am the ugly, strange, and terrifying thing that has intruded into their world. I am lost, but I am here and I am alive…and I have no desire to be otherwise.

I exist.

And for now… for _now_ …that has to be enough.


End file.
